If Bruce fixed the autopilot who's to say he didn't eject before the Bat crossed out over the bay? When the Bat is seen flying over the bridge Bruce might already have bailed among the canyon of buildings.

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I'd have to watch it again. We'd have to know the very last moment Nolan cut to a shot of Wayne in the cockpit

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We see that closeup shot of him staring at the sun right before the bomb goes off, and he's clearly still in The Bat.

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Okay, so he didn't abandon the Bat while in Gotham. He had to jump into the water

We see that closeup shot of him staring at the sun right before the bomb goes off, and he's clearly still in The Bat.

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I don't know... Lucius Fox has demonstrated before that he likes to design things with ejection systems that are vehicles in and of themselves. Catwoman was zipping around on part of the original Tumbler a full 8 years after it was destroyed.

We saw Batman in the cockpit. We did not see the cockpit in the Bat. (Or did we? I was not watching for details like that last night).

It should. For all the bitching about that with Indy he wasn't at ground fucking zero. He was two miles away inside a lead lined box.
Batman was 40 feet above it in a light weight gyro-copter on steroids. Five seconds to detonation we know he's still in The Bat.

We see that closeup shot of him staring at the sun right before the bomb goes off, and he's clearly still in The Bat.

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I don't know... Lucius Fox has demonstrated before that he likes to design things with ejection systems that are vehicles in and of themselves. Catwoman was zipping around on part of the original Tumbler a full 8 years after it was destroyed.

We saw Batman in the cockpit. We did not see the cockpit in the Bat. (Or did we? I was not watching for details like that last night).

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It's not going to get to a minimum safe distance in 5 seconds no matter what kind of ejection system you have...not in reality, of which many like to harp on Nolan's Bat films for existing.

Just because we see Bats in the cockpit right before the detonation doesn't mean that shot took place a second before the detonation, they could have been playing with the timing of the shots to mislead you.

"Microwave emitters" - You can buy one of these at Walmart for around $20, they've been common in homes since the 1970s.

"Phones capable of shutting down power in a skyscraper."

While nothing I can point to, something like this isn't implausible and I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA didn't have something like it.

"Fusion reactor capable of generating clean energy."

Not sci-fi at all. Sure, it's the Nirvana of clean energy but creating nuclear fusion is already possible it's just a matter of harnessing it and controlling it inside an atmosphere and being able to generate it without the use of nuclear fission. A nuclear fusion power source would generate a fuckload of clean energy as nuclear fusion wouldn't pollute, use up scare resources and the radiation generated would be limited.

I think I need to see those parts again. I recall him saying 40 days for it to degrade from the point it was removed. Bane's men remove the core almost immediately upon arming it. I don't recall 5 months having passed at any point before that.

I think it's Gordan who states the bomb detonates 20-some days after it's activated. That gives Bruce a little over 2 weeks to come back at 100% from a vertebrae popping out his back via a healing punch and magic rope.

Just because we see Bats in the cockpit right before the detonation doesn't mean that shot took place a second before the detonation, they could have been playing with the timing of the shots to mislead you.

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True. More time could have passed between that shot and when the movie switches back to the perspective of people in Gotham...

Although even with a lead of 20 or 30 seconds, that still wouldn't be enough to survive a blast like that.

I think it's Gordan who states the bomb detonates 20-some days after it's activated. That gives Bruce a little over 2 weeks to come back at 100% from a vertebrae popping out his back via a healing punch and magic rope.

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The bomb does indeed take 5 months to degrade. The point at which Gordon, Tate, and Fox are talking about the bomb, there are only 23 days remaining and they need to come up with a plan. Batman has not yet returned from his exile at this point in the movie.

Look, it's all about the structure of the ending. You can't take the Florence scene in isolation. You have to put it in the context of the scenes around it, which are clearly not visions or dreams. It sure looks like Batman is dead, but . . .

1) Lucius: Hey, Bruce fixed the autopilot before the fatal flight. Could it be?

2) Gordon: Hey, where did this brand-new Bat-Signal come from. Could it be?

4) Yes! Bruce is still alive, which is just what all the other scenes were setting up. That's the whole point of all those other epilogues. Along with Blake becoming the next Batman, it's the payoff to all the hints they were dropping in the other scenes.

You have to pay attention to the structure of the ending, not just the Alfred scene on its own.

Although even with a lead of 20 or 30 seconds, that still wouldn't be enough to survive a blast like that.

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I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that Bruce Wayne is not in the Bat as it flies out to the bay. This would mean that when it detonates, he's probably safe on land. Since we don't see this, it's only speculation.

However, what I'm not willing to suspend is that the Bat is capable of reaching the minimum safe distance of six miles off the coast of Gotham (the bomb was previously referred to as having a six mile blast radius) when they are still on the ground with less than 2 minutes left to go, discussing what to do. The Bat would not only need to be capable of speeds well over 150mph (plausible) but they would have needed to be hauling ass and not waiting around.